


A Question of Timing

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Guilt, Romance, skoulsonfest2k16redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7574386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It happens at 8.04 in the morning.</p><p>Written for the Skoulson RomFest 2k16 Redux - prompt: forgiveness</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Question of Timing

It happens on a Tuesday, at 8.03 in the morning.

She walks into the kitchen of their new base - or almost-kitchen, since they are still putting up the whole thing, there’s electricity only like on the west half of the building and the walls are naked, and they still need a lot of furniture.

They have a kitchen counter, though. And a couple of chairs and a coffee machine. That’s enough to make a place feel like home.

Daisy walks in, in her training sweats and tank top, rubbing the bruises from her usual morning sparring session with May. For the record May has more bruises. And apparently _brutal_ first thing in the morning is good for your personal development or something. She just knows she feels sweaty and in pain and in need of coffee and kind of happy.

She sees Coulson (who is not usually this early a riser if he can help it) by the kitchen counter, sleeves rolled up, trying to fit new tiles on the kitchen while. Daisy hurries to his side, curious and delighted by such a strangely domestic sight of Coulson.

“Re-tiling the kitchen?” she asks, leaning against the bare wall. He gives her a sideways smile without taking his eyes off his task.

“Yeah.”

There’s so much to do in the new base. It’s almost exciting. At least she thinks it is.

But Coulson looks like he’s not sure he’s doing this the right way.

“Wasn’t Mack going to do it?” she remembers.

Coulson lets out a long sigh. “Yeah.”

“You made a bet with him.”

“I made a bet with him,” Coulson repeats, sounding embarrassed.

“Never make a bet with Mack.”

“You’re smarter than me.”

She laughs, not moving from where she is even though Coulson continues working. She watches him work.

She notices his left arm. 

Somehow it got damaged in last night’s mission, probably just about grazed by a bullet. The mission had gone well and Daisy - leading it - thought no one had been hurt.

She was wrong.

It looks like there’s a tear in the coating fabric of his prosthetic and the metal alloy underneath is visible, breaking the illusion of the skin-like material.

Coulson notices her gaze.

“Without Fitz and with no access to SHIELD tech I have no way to fix it. But it’s aesthetic, I’m fine, it works just fine.” She’s staring too long and he mistakes it for disgust. He starts rolling down his shirt. “I’m sorry.”

Daisy stops him.

“No, no, I don’t mind.”

She touches his wrist for a moment and Coulson nods.

They both go back to staring at the wall.

“Who chose the tiles anyway?” Daisy asks.

“I did.”

She turns towards him, impressed. “You did?”

“We had to re-tile the place either way, we might as well do it properly.”

A very Coulson reasoning. Daisy agrees. They have that philosophy in common.

The color choice is kind of interesting. Very mellow, some would say surprisingly feminine for a badass spy like Coulson. But she knows better.

“Pastel green?” she asks.

“Pale apple,” Coulson corrects him. “If we are going to spend some times down here it’d better be around some nice, soothing tiles.”

She nods, and she thinks about how much Coulson has been through; how much pain and loss and betrayal, and he’s softer than when he first met him. Sadder too, but kinder and more whole. Better in a strange way. Perhaps that’s unfair, but Daisy thinks the same about herself. She is a better person than she used to be, and despite the pain that had caused these changes in her, she doesn’t regret the changes themselves.

It’s 8.04 - she can see the clock on the kitchen counter - and it finally happens.

And the first thing she does after it happens (it makes sense in her mind, okay? it makes sense in her heart) is place her hand on Coulson’s prosthetic hand and bring her mouth to his. It’s a very light kiss, but unmistakeable, and Daisy can feel something fluttering inside Coulson’s ribcage as she presses her lips against him a bit harder before breaking contact.

“Why...?” he asks in a small voice.

She takes a step back, standing very straight. She is scared, but that’s a good sign. She is still impulsive when it comes to these things - but now she is not doing them for the wrong reasons like she used to. It’s Coulson, there are no wrong reasons with him.

But the timing, he needs to know about the timing.

“I’ve forgiven myself,” she tells him. It’s hard to put into words and Daisy is never fond of talking about her own feelings. But she just randomly kissed her ex-boss and best friend on the mouth, she kind owes it to him. “For all I did to you guys: your leg, beating up Mack. And I’ve forgiven myself for surviving. I no longer feel guilty for living on when Hive died. I know that sounds stupid but we were connected, I was chemically wired to feel guilty for not…”

“Disappearing when he did,” Coulson fills in. Daisy can see a tension on the muscles of the jaw. In a moment it’s gone, and he’s all softness and kindness. “It’s not stupid.”

“And I’ve stopped feeling guilty for living on when Lincoln died,” she adds, knowing it’s the most difficult part. The most relevant too, for the matter at hand. “I’ve stopped feeling guilty that grief didn’t break me. And I’ve forgiven myself for eventually being okay.”

Coulson stays very still and Daisy moves her hand from his forearm to his elbow.

“And I’ve forgiven myself for eventually being…” she looks at the tiles he was setting on the wall. “ _Happy_.”

Coulson seems to react to that word, dropping the spacer in his right hand and pushing his fingers into Daisy’s hair, pulling her against him, kissing her with hunger. She arches her body against the touch instinctively, her nerve ending singing with a joy she would definitely have felt guilty about months ago. Not now.

She is a bit surprised by Coulson’s… passion. After her first chaste kiss he had seemed unsure of wanting to pursue something as big as this. Now he is kissing her like he has been thinking about kissing her for a long, long time. The idea sends a nice thrill down her body. He grabs her by the arms, caressing her shoulders greedily, even though Daisy is sure her bare skin is all sweaty and gross Coulson doesn’t seem to mind.

With some difficulty they let go of each other, smiling with their eyes when they pull apart, both seeming a bit incredulous at the situation.

Daisy lifts her hand, running her fingers through Coulson’s hair, touching his temple, his cheek. She hasn’t been this physically close to anyone in over a year and she gets a bit drunk on it for a second, the connection, the freedom.

“And you? Have you forgiven yourself or…?” she drops her fingers to his jaw. His eyes darken a bit. “Do you still feel guilty? For Roz? For Hive? For what happened to me?”

He nods, looking guilty for telling her the truth, too.

“That’s okay,” she says, kissing him again. “I needed to forgive myself, but I don’t want to force it on you. Plus, you’ve always been a little slower to catch up than me.”

Coulson smiles sweetly, dropping his arm to the small of Daisy’s back and pulling her in again, kissing her again, again quite passionately, shoving her against the wall a bit and skimming his fingers across the exposed skin of her stomach, right above the waistband of her sweatpants. The immediate wave of arousal surprises Daisy, because she hasn’t felt it in so long, because she didn’t expect to get there so soon, and she wants his fingers to do that again.

Just as she thinks this, and she pushes out her hips to chase Coulson’s touch, she sees a shadow from the corner of her eyes. Coulson sees it too and they both freeze, rather comically, with Daisy’s lips locked over his chin.

May enters the kitchen, straight from the shower, given them a cursory, bored glance glance - there’s no mistaking what’s going on, with the mouths and the hands and Coulson’s leg beginning to insinuate itself between Daisy’s - as she goes to the kettle and prepares herself a tea.

Coulson and Daisy look at each other, not daring disturb the scene with a movement or a noise.

May finally sits down at the counter, with her tea in front of her, impervious, as if finding Daisy and Coulson making out in the kitchen was a normal occurrence.

But Coulson is blushing furiously, and Daisy touches her nose to his and chuckles without a sound, too amused by the situation.

Coulson takes her hand in his - Daisy opens her eyes wide because she hasn’t felt this in so long, and it has never felt this good before, just having someone’s fingers laced with hers - and pulls her away from the counter.

“We’ll go somewhere else,” he says, loud, so May can hear it.

Their colleague nod at the words and keeps quietly and happily (she does look happy, which in its strange way gives Daisy a certain sense of relief, she's not good at feeling romantic when people around her are unhappy) drinking her tea.

“What about the tiles?” she asks in a whisper.

Coulson squeezes her hand.

“The tiles can wait. This can’t,” he says, sounding really resolved, very smooth.

Daisy feels lighter than ever.


End file.
